Kibalchich, Nikolai Ivanovitch (1854–1881)

Russian medical student, journalist, and revolutionary who may have been
the first person in history to propose using rocket power as a means of
transport in space. Kibalchich had attempted several times to kill Czar
Alexander II who, ironically, had tried to introduce reforms in Russia during
his reign. Along with his accomplices, Kibalchich finally succeeded in assassinating
the Czar on Mar. 13, 1881, and was himself put to death on Apr. 3, at the
age of 27. While in prison, awaiting execution, Kibalchich wrote a remarkable
paper illustrating the principle of space propulsion. In it, he describes
a means of propelling a platform by igniting gunpowder
cartridges in a rocket chamber. Changing the direction of the rocket's axis,
he realized, would alter the vehicle's flight path. In his notes, he explains:

I am writing this project in prison, a few days
before my death. I believe in the practicability of my idea and this faith
supports me in my desperate plight.

He was a close contemporary of two other rocket pioneers, his compatriot
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the German
Hermann Ganswindt. The great American
rocketeer Robert Goddard was born a year
after Kibalchich's execution.

Kibalchich's flying platform

The device that Kibalchich described consisted of a platform with a hole
in the center, above which was mounted a breech-loaded rocket motor. The
motor was fed, machine-gun fashion, with charges of compressed powder, the
thrust being varied either by altering the size of the cartridges or the
speed at which they were fed into the chamber. Take-off was vertical, with
the chamber firing through the hole. As soon as sufficient altitude was
reached the chamber would be rotated through 90 degrees for horizontal flight.
The propulsion arrangement of this unusual craft foreshadowed some of the
vertical take-off aircraft which began to be developed in the second half
of the 20th century.